Анджела Стент - Putin's World - Russia Against the West and with the Rest

Given Merkel’s complicated relationship with Putin, she, like many other Western leaders, welcomed the election of forty-two-year-old Dmitry Medvedev, Putin’s chosen successor, as president in 2008. Putin appointed himself prime minister, and no one was sure how the arrangement might work. Merkel hoped that a younger post-Soviet leader not connected to the intelligence services might eventually liberalize domestically and pursue a less assertive foreign policy. She wanted to believe his rhetorical commitment to modernizing Russia and hoped he would be able to break free of Putin’s control. Although Medvedev, unlike Putin, had no German background, he too singled out Germany as a key partner for Russia. But Merkel was astute enough to hedge her bets. Unlike the Obama administration, which focused solely on Medvedev as its interlocutor as it pursued its reset policy, the German government maintained contacts with Putin while he was prime minister from 2008 to 2012.

Medvedev’s first trip to a Western country was to Germany, in May 2008. He used the occasion both to court German business and to make a speech in Berlin proposing a new security architecture, based on a legally binding treaty covering “the whole Euro-Atlantic area from Vancouver to Vladivostok,” adding that “Atlanticism as a sole historical principle has already had its day.” 46Arguing that the West had reneged on its promise to include Russia in a post–Cold War European security structure, he made a case that resonated across much of the German political class. Russia looked to Germany to play a leading role in the design of this new architecture. It is unclear how serious this proposal was. It was short on specifics but represented Medvedev’s attempt to answer the question of where Russia belonged. Despite the German government’s attempts to promote this plan, it withered away because of lack of support from other countries and the vagueness of the proposal itself. Later, some Germans would question whether his was a missed opportunity to bind Russia to Euro-Atlantic structures.

The 2009 German elections had produced a new coalition government. Guido Westerwelle from the Free Democratic Party became foreign minister but largely continued his predecessor’s policy. Germany was the prime mover behind the EU’s 2010 Partnership for Modernization plan with Russia, a technical program aimed at promoting rule-of-law and modern governance, fighting corruption, and encouraging a more diverse economy—policies Medvedev himself repeatedly promoted. 47Merkel also met with Medvedev to seek a solution to the conflict in Transnistria. 48There was a flurry of activity from Berlin to encourage Russia to modernize its economy and pursue more cooperative ties with the West, mirroring the Obama administration’s reset effort. In the end, however, Medvedev was unable to implement most of his ambitious plans, stymied by the officials and magnates around Putin whose vested interests would have been threatened by real reforms. By the time Putin announced his return to the Kremlin, triggering mass protests a few months later at election time, German hopes for a better relationship with Russia had faded. Indeed, when Putin announced in September 2011 that he and Medvedev had agreed from the beginning that they would switch jobs in 2012, she felt duped by this “castling” move. 49

Russia’s annexation of Crimea and launch of a war in Southeastern Ukraine had a major impact on its relations with all of its Western partners, but the rift with Germany was greater and more unanticipated in both Moscow and Berlin than with any other country. From 1992 to 2014, German policy toward Russia had been premised on a series of fundamental principles. Involvement with Russia was essential, however challenging the process was. Russia was viewed as a large, important, but difficult neighbor with whom Germany—and indeed all of Europe—was fated to engage. Moreover, Germany’s gratitude toward Russia for facilitating the peaceful unification of the country meant that Berlin had a unique role and responsibility in Europe in assisting Moscow in its difficult post-communist transition. It was assumed that Russia wanted to be integrated into the West, that closer economic ties would promote a better investment climate, and that Russia and Germany shared similar views about European security. But the fivefold increase in German exports to Russia between 2000 and 2011 had promoted neither the rule of law nor a better investment climate. And Russia’s aggression against Ukraine threatened to tear down the peaceful post-unification European edifice Merkel had worked so hard to construct and maintain. “Putin surprised everyone,” said one of her senior aides. “The swiftness, the brutality, the coldheartedness. It’s just so twentieth century—the tanks, the propaganda, the agents provocateurs.” 50Ostpolitik had become Frostpolitik. 51

Within the span of six weeks in 2014, the post–Cold War peaceful European order stretching back to German unification in 1990 and in which Chancellor Merkel had invested so much effort to nurture and sustain was shattered.

Yet initially the German response was cautious. Given the considerable German economic stake in relations with Russia, Berlin was reluctant to impose robust sanctions on Russian individuals and companies. However, the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH-17 changed all that. The catastrophic loss of Dutch lives and the callous way in which the separatists hindered access to the crash site had a profound effect on European public opinion. Chancellor Merkel took the lead in securing EU backing for far-reaching financial sanctions that have made it difficult for Russia to access global capital markets and, along with the halving of oil prices, initially imposed considerable economic pain. The sanctions come up for review every six months, and so far, Germany has persuaded its partners to renew them until Russia complies with the provisions of the February 2015 Minsk II agreement. This most recent agreement lays out what Russia and Ukraine have to do in order to end the conflict and includes Russia returning control of the border to Ukraine.

Given the German business community’s stake in trade with Russia—underwriting up to 200,000 German jobs at the height of the economic relationship—there was considerable pushback against the adoption of sanctions. Eventually, however, the head of the Federation of German Industries gave his support to the chancellor, acknowledging that security considerations had to come before economic interests: “As painful as further economic sanctions will be for European business development, for German exports, and for individual companies, they cannot and must not be ruled out as a way to apply pressure on the Russian government.” 52The Ost-Ausschuss der Deutschen Wirtschaft, the main business lobbying group for Russia, however, demurred and has repeatedly criticized the sanctions, saying they hurt German industry and have not changed Russian policy. They have allies in both the Social Democratic Party and in Merkel’s own Christian Democratic Union and its sister party the Christian Social Union of Bavaria. The Kremlin understands these internal German divisions very well, and Putin has done his best to encourage them by welcoming an array of German officials from different political parties in Moscow to discuss new trade and investment opportunities.

Angela Merkel has a complex double role as both chief enforcer and chief negotiator in this complicated relationship. Even as German-Russian relations have deteriorated, she has taken the lead in negotiating with President Putin and seeking to de-escalate the conflict in Eastern Ukraine. Indeed, during the Obama administration the White House delegated much of the diplomacy of the Ukraine crisis to Germany and took a back seat in trying to resolve the crisis. The US is not involved in the quadrilateral Normandy format—Germany, France, Russia, and Ukraine—that negotiated the Minsk II agreement. In what was apparently an understanding between Obama and Merkel, the chancellor agreed to maintain a tough sanctions regime if the White House vetoed Congress’s attempts to supply lethal defensive weapons to Ukraine. Merkel believes there is no military solution to the conflict and is adamantly against doing anything that could provoke Russia further. Merkel is the Western leader who has had the most intense contact with Putin, speaking with him repeatedly by phone. She has also been the lead negotiator in the two Minsk cease-fire agreements. Her frequent and frustrating conversations with Putin led her apparently to remark to President Obama that the Russian president “lives in another world” to that of his Western counterparts. German officials say that Merkel’s experience of having Putin often say one thing and do another has hardened her view of the Russian leader.